by Eric Flint
Leopold Wilhelm had collected a half-dozen different chess sets and spread them out. On the basis of the latest news, he was replaying what had happened. At Hamburg. At Luebeck Bay. At Copenhagen. At Ahrensbök. Since his ambitions were not nautical, he was devoting at least eighty percent of his time to Ahrensbök, proclaiming to anyone who would listen that even he, at the age of twenty, with no practical military experience, could have done better than the French generals.
She smiled. Leo had made it very clear that, in his opinion, de Valois had learned nothing by living an additional thirty years.
Then there was the Wietze raid. Turenne.
He grumbled something along the lines of, if only Papa would let me into the field....
"Yes, Leo," Maria Anna murmured soothingly, for the fourteenth or fifteenth time. She knew as well as the rest of them that the youngest of the family had minimal interest in the ecclesiastical career for which Papa had destined him when he was only five years old. Leo's enthusiasms ran in the direction of armies. And art.
In practice, of course, a "career in the church" meant that he already held a lot of bishoprics, but had not taken any vows. The family was reserving the right to change its collective mind, in case Ferdinand did not produce surviving male heirs.
Sometimes great families did change their collective minds. Think of Claudia de' Medici in Tyrol, who had sent them the wonderful music from up-time. Could that have only been in January? It seemed so long ago. Much more than four months.
Claudia's father had been a cardinal before he resigned and married. Her second husband, Uncle Leopold, Papa's younger brother, had been a bishop before he resigned and married. In fact, he had been Leo's predecessor as bishop of Passau and Strassburg. Now Uncle Leopold was dead, but he and Claudia had given the world four young Habsburg heirs.
There was nothing to say that, some day, Leo might not be called upon to marry and take up a secular life.
Still, she knew, at present he found his circumstances–constricting. Not that he wasn't pious. Not that he didn't live in such a manner as to avoid scandal. At least, in another year, he would enter the Teutonic Order. Some day, after the death of the incumbent and coadjutor, he would become Grand Master. That had been agreed upon when he was eleven, the same year, 1625, that he succeeded to Uncle Leopold's two dioceses.
Looked at one way, the Teutonic Order was just another ecclesiastical benefice, among the pluralities he was accumulating. Looked at in another, it would give him a reasonable chance at military action. But it hadn't happened yet.
Maria Anna frowned, considering the frustrating difficulties of learning what one needed to know from the libraries in Grantville. It was a lot of work, even for Jesuits who were used to doing that sort of thing, and often very slow to produce results.
The encyclopedias said that in 1639, another five years, Ferdinand had entrusted Leo with command of the imperial army and he hadn't done a shabby job of it, either. At least, he'd had enough sense to listen to more experienced advisers. Plus he had become regent of the Netherlands after Don Fernando. Not to mention that he had been in charge of the ceremony when Queen Kristina of Sweden converted to the Catholic church after her abdication.
All of which she–and he, and Ferdinand, and Doña Mencia–knew, not because the world had remembered Leopold Wilhelm von Habsburg as an archduke of Austria, not because the world had remembered him as a general, not because the world had remembered his efforts to advance the counter-reformation and support the Jesuits, but... Leo was remembered only because he had–would have?–the sense to employ a painter named David Teniers, whom its encyclopedias did remember, as the purchasing agent for his art collection. The author of the article about Teniers had been gracious enough to include a paragraph about his patron.
It had taken the researcher they employed a really long time to find any information at all about her younger brother's future.
She shifted her position a little. She had been watching Leo for quite a while and was starting to get stiff.
Teniers had made a career of painting peasants. That was the source of his lasting fame. A humbling thought. She should ask Doña Mencia to ask her brother Cardinal Bedmar to find out more about Teniers. He lived in Antwerp, after all.
She looked back at Leo. Actually, that other world had not done too badly by him.
He nodded his head in response to her most recent soothing murmur and returned his attention to the chess sets.
* * * *
"Right before your wedding, too," Cecelia Renata contributed that evening. "I can hardly believe it. Such a terrible defeat. Such horrible, absolutely disastrous, omens for a marriage. Have you checked your horoscope?"
Maria Anna grimaced. She had a horoscope, of course. A very elaborate one. It had been drawn up immediately after her birth and updated regularly. No important person would attempt to go through life without the guidance provided by a horoscope. Astrologers were among the better-paid court personnel, once one got below the ranks of the nobility.
"I don't need a horoscope to tell me that the Habsburgs came through it all relatively unscathed," she answered. "Spain was not directly involved this time. At least, not heavily. Perhaps our cousin in Madrid learned something from the way Richelieu sacrificed Admiral Oquendo's fleet the last time. And Don Fernando...."
She stopped. They were alone. As alone as they ever were most of the time. Papa had returned to his audience chamber after supper, the constant parade of solemn-faced men dressed all in black having redoubled since the news of the League of Ostend's various disasters in the north reached Vienna two days earlier. Mama had gone to her apartments to rest. But. Not only Doña Mencia was here, but also Cecelia Renata's chief attendant. And also. She glanced at the servants who stood by the door.
She was not certain that it would be entirely prudent to continue. Rephrase that. She was certain that it would not be prudent to continue. Father Lamormaini knew too much about what occurred in her private chambers. Someone–someone close to her retinue–was reporting to Papa's intelligence officers.
At least her trousseau was finished. Finally. Frau Stecher and the seamstresses had gone into packing mode. Which meant, unfortunately, that she hadn't seen little Susanna for several days.
She would discuss Don Fernando's astonishing level of non-participation with Doña Mencia when they were in private. They actually were in private, sometimes. Doña Mencia slept in her room, after all. An Austrian archduchess did not spend her nights unchaperoned.
Of course, a maid slept on a cot at the foot of her bed, also, in case she should need something during the night. She could always need something during the night and send Magdalena on an errand.
So she looked back at her sister, grinning, "The only thing my horoscope predicts that I will make a splendid marriage. That's safe enough, of course. If a daughter of the Habsburgs survives long enough, and does not become a nun, it's the only kind of marriage she's likely to make. Yours says the same thing." She pursed her lips. "Of course, it does not say that I will be marrying Uncle Max six weeks from now. Or anyone else, specifically, at any precise time. No more than yours predicts exactly who you will marry. I sometimes suspect that the motto of court astrologers is, 'Vague is your friend.'"
* * * *
"It's obvious that the up-timers had better libraries." Maria Anna was afraid that the tone of her voice was a little sulky. So be it. "The books that they do have in Grantville mention them. The Library of Congress, in their own United States of America. The British Museum. The Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. There was a great library in Florence." She paused a moment and glared at Doña Mencia. "A great library in Vienna."
"If God had chosen to send Vienna back from up-time, we would not be here ourselves, but somewhere else," Doña Mencia pointed out.
"I wish you didn't have to be so reasonable." Maria Anna tossed her head. "At least, not reasonable all the time. Perhaps God could just have sent the library. Right here, next door to the
Hofburg, where we could use it ourselves instead of depending on the Jesuits."
Somewhere under her breath, Doña Mencia muttered something about spoiled brats who wanted eggs in their beer. Aloud, though, she said, "There was a great library in Munich, also. Since a certain archduchess will be leaving Vienna in less than a week, while she is wishing for the moon, she might devote her efforts to expressing a desire that God had chosen to transfer the Munich library, instead. Or send up a prayer that he had deigned to move all the libraries she listed to Munich, conveniently close to the Residenz. While she is coveting the possession an up-time library that exists nowhere in this world, she might as well make a thorough job of her exercise in futility."
While it was not a direct reproach, it had that effect. Maria Anna apologized.
Doña Mencia accepted the apology gracefully.
As she said her final rosary of the evening, Maria Anna was glad that Doña Mencia had not been offended. The terrible news in regard to the League of Ostend had burdened everyone's spirits, but that gave her no right to be rude to her attendants.
Of course, it was the terrible news about the League of Ostend that so burdened her, she assured herself. Not the thought that in six weeks she would be married to Uncle Max. That was just one of the duties that went with her station in life. One of the unvarying duties. Even if the League of Ostend had won a great victories at Hamburg, at Luebeck Bay, at Copenhagen, and at Ahrensbök, in six weeks she would still have become duchess of Bavaria.
Some circumstances did not change. She submitted herself to the will of God.
Part V
June, 1634
Those Shadowy
Recollections
Chapter 24
Tempora Jucunda
Vienna
Every item that had personalized her apartments, made them her own, was gone. Packed, some of them. The rest placed into storage. Some day, a daughter of her brother Ferdinand and his wife Mariana would live in these rooms. Until then, they would stand empty except for the bed, chests, and chairs.
Maria Anna walked over to the window and stood watching as the carriages that would take the court to Passau for the ceremony transferring her to Bavaria lined up on the streets below. The wagons were waiting outside the walls. The servants had finished the job of loading the baggage the day before, but things were moving slowly. A woman, the wife of a chancery official from the place of her carriage in the cortege, lost control of a wiggling lapdog. A groom grabbed it before it could spook the horses, thank goodness. A team out of control could have delayed everything for hours. It seemed that every additional minute since breakfast just made her more melancholy.
She turned back in toward the room, fingering her rosary. "Did you manage to get any news this morning?"
Doña Mencia reached into her satchel. "No newspapers. I suppose that Frau Stecher has kept little Susanna too busy to go find any for us. The private secretary to the ambassador from the Spanish Netherlands sent me correspondence that arrived in the diplomatic pouch yesterday evening. Someone delivered it while we were at mass. It doesn't contain much that we didn't already know. There's a list of all the prominent people who are or will be taking part in the Congress of Copenhagen called by Gustavus Adolphus. The official sessions have started. The preliminary official sessions, at least. There's a lot of discussion of Prince Ulrik's heroic actions. They've caused a great deal of excitement."
"It must be nice for the nobles to be able to find and talk about at least one heroic prince among all the heroic commoners in this campaign." Maria Anna's voice was flat. "What do they say about the Norwegian whose designs and ideas let the prince be heroic? Or what Oxenstierna thinks about the Swedish king's agreement to negotiate with the Danes?"
"As for the Norwegian, it depends upon who is writing the despatch. Oxenstierna is said to be less than pleased. Both with heroic Danish princes and heroic commoners." Doña Mencia paused, trying to think of something that would distract the archduchess. "Many of the participants were brought in the up-timers' airplanes. Scaglia is there as an observer and was able to observe the planes land and take off again."
"Don Fernando sent an observer to Copenhagen? Was permitted to send one? Isn't that a little... odd?"
"He was invited to do so by the USE ambassadress. By Rebecca Abrabanel."
"With the Swede's permission?"
"Presumably. Although one hears that the Stearns administration often acts on the maxim that it is easier to ask for forgiveness after a fait accompli than to obtain permission in advance. We live in very interesting times."
"But Don Fernando himself is not going to be in Copenhagen?"
"That would be a little... excessive... under the circumstances. Whatever people expect, whatever people speculate, he has not yet made a formal break with Spain. Although–it is said that Rubens has collected portraits of all the eligible Catholic princesses. Not, it is to be presumed, just on a whim."
"Before my betrothal to Uncle Max, I would have been among the eligible ones."
"Indeed, your portrait is among those in Brussels. Presumably, Rubens ordered one before your betrothal became official. Which is interesting, since it indicates that Don Fernando must have been contemplating his next move for several months before the rumors began to circulate."
Maria Anna went back to the window. She wished that the steward would send someone to summon her. There was nothing left for her in the Hofburg. She might as well leave right now. But people entered the carriages in a certain order, defined by protocol. It would never do for the emperor's daughter, much less the emperor, to sit waiting while lesser mortals ran back into the palace for forgotten items or grooms repaired a bit of harness that broke at the last minute. She would be called third from the last. Then Mariana, baby Ferdinand, and her ladies in waiting. Then Papa and Mama and their personal attendants. After that, her wedding procession could start on its way.
She placed one hand on the drapery. "Talk to me, Doña Mencia. Tell me a story. 'Once upon a time...'" She laughed softly. "But leave out the fairy tale ending, please."
Besançon, in the Franche-Comté
By the time Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar ended his faked maneuvering in the Breisgau and brought his forces back to his administrative center at Besançon, there was more news from Paris. Some of his aides thought Bernhard had acted precipitously, even rashly, to have ended the maneuvers immediately after receiving the first reports of Torstensson's crushing defeat of de Valois' army at Ahrensbök. But the newspaper accounts from Paris that awaited them at Besançon made it obvious that he'd gauged the situation correctly. Bernhard was basking in the sunshine of a bold move that had turned out quite well, and all but sneering at his more timid associates.
Richelieu had summoned Marshal Turenne and his cavalry to Paris. That was a sure sign that the cardinal was now completely pre-occupied with France's internal situation. Well...
Mostly pre-occupied. Richelieu was quite capable of handling several matters at once, and doing them all very competently. But it really didn't matter if he did manage to devote some time to gauging the situation with Bernhard in the Franche-Comté. What could he do about it, really, beyond sending stern missives? The only capable army he could rely upon at the moment was Turenne's, and he needed Turenne guarding Paris and the royal palace at the Louvre.
Bernhard clapped his hands. The gesture was simply one of satisfaction; indeed, exuberant satisfaction. Not only was the political situation developing very nicely, but his indigestion had ceased as well.
"Who says plans never work the way they're supposed to?" he demanded, smiling slyly at his chief aide, Friedrich von Kanoffski.
"Not I," replied von Kanoffski. Unlike some others, Friedrich had had the sense to keep his mouth shut.
Bernhard nodded. Then, after a moment, said: "I believe I've been a little testy of late." He cocked an inquisitive eyebrow.
Friedrich shook his head, making sure to maintain a solemn expression. "I can't say I not
iced, Your Grace."
* * * *
Amberg, Upper Palatinate
"I suppose there's no way to restrain General Banér now," said Duke Ernst. He leaned back in the chair in his office and studied the mass of papers on his desk. "As if I didn't have enough to worry about already."
Colonel Erik Haakansson Hand chuckled and shook his head. "After the news of Ahrensbök? Not a chance. Johan was champing at the bit already. He's jealous by nature, and of no other of my cousin's generals is he more jealous than Lennart Torstensson. Johan Banér is looking at his thirty-eighth birthday, in a couple of weeks, and Lennart just turned thirty-one. Now, the upstart Torstennson has the great victory at Ahrensbök under his belt—and to make things worse, he was the commander-in-chief at the battle, not simply serving under my cousin. So now Johan is determined to match the feat—come as close as he can, at least—by seizing Ingolstadt from the Bavarians."
"But it's silly, Erik, even in those terms. Ahrensbök was a decisive victory, one of the very few such in the annals of war. Even if Banér succeeds in reducing Ingolstadt, it wouldn't come even close. To be sure, having a Bavarian enclave north of the Danube is a nuisance to us, but that's all it is. Especially since we have our own enclave south of the river at Neuburg."
Colonel Hand shrugged. "What difference does it make? For good or ill, Gustav Adolf made it clear that Johan could operate as an independent commander down here. You simply can't restrain him, any longer."
Duke Ernst sighed. "True enough. What do you recommend I do?"
"Since you can't stop him, you may as well do what you can to see that Banér succeeds. I don't quite agree with you, anyway, that Ingolstadt is simply a nuisance. So long as the Bavarians have a bridgehead north of the Danube, they'll pose a continual military threat to the USE. Seizing Ingolstadt would improve our strategic situation considerably."
As the chief administrator of the Upper Palatinate for Gustav Adolf and the USE, Duke Ernst was not inclined to argue the point. In truth, he'd be a lot happier himself if he didn't always have to keep a wary eye on Ingolstadt. These things were unpredictable. Sooner or later, Duke Maximilian was bound to dismiss the fortress' garrison commander, Cratz von Scharffenstein, and replace him with someone who was less slothful, if not necessarily less avaricious. An energetic and aggressive commander of Ingolstadt's forces, combined with the already-aggressive Bavarian cavalry under the command of von Mercy and von Werth, could present a real problem.
